


Contrapasso

by rexluscus



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dark, Dark!Harry, Humiliation, Jossed, M/M, Post-War, Prison, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-06
Updated: 2011-07-06
Packaged: 2017-10-21 02:28:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/219888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rexluscus/pseuds/rexluscus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>contrapasso, n. the ironic cosmological law ensuring that "the punishment fits the crime."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Contrapasso

**Author's Note:**

> Written as Team Angst's entry in the 2006 Snarry Games for the prompt 'dollhouse.' Thanks to regan_v, themostepotente, schemingreader, busaikko, djin7, maeglinyedi, bethbethbeth, amanuensis1, and teamangst for their help and input with this story.
> 
> This was written after HBP but before the last book, so it's been quite severely jossed.

The Auror on duty behind the high desk at the far end of the vestibule sat up abruptly as Harry strode in with assignment papers out and ready. The Auror took them without a word and studied them, squinting. He looked back and forth between the papers and Harry as though unable to reconcile something in the two.

"Harry Potter," the Auror said, looking up, then down, then up again.

Harry nodded."That's me."

"They're transferring you here," the Auror remarked.

"Mm hmm," said Harry.

"Not meaning to be rude, sir—uh, Mister—"

"Just Harry."

"—Harry. But would you 'appen to know why?"

"I requested it," Harry replied.

"You requested it." The Auror continued to look from papers, to Harry, to papers.

"Yes."

"You." A pause, laden with disbelief. "Harry Potter."

"It's all completely approved," Harry offered, in a voice he hoped indicated a desire to speed things along.

"Er, right." The Auror shook his head. "You're relieving me then, I s'pose?"

"Seems that way."

"You been briefed, then?"

"Er, no."

"Right." The Auror took a piece of parchment out of the desk and began reciting from it in a bored monotone. " _Welcome to the Amelia Bones Memorial Maximum Security Detention Facility for Dangerous Magical Persons. As sole Auror on duty, you have been entrusted with a grave responsibility by your peers and government, a responsibility to keep the witches and wizards of your country safe from_ —"

"Er—" Harry raised a hand impatiently. "I can just read it myself, if you don't mind."

The Auror glared at him for a long moment, then handed over the parchment.

"Thanks," said Harry.

The Auror stood to leave. "Keys're in the desk. Lock-down's at eight o'clock, so you'll be home for a late supper. All visitors must sign in and out. Don't worry about inmate upkeep; your job's security, nothin' else." He paused. "If you was anyone else, I'd tell you to get a transfer as soon as possible, 'cause it's a dead-end career-killer and the lowest pay grade in the division—but, seein' as 'ow you requested it…"

Harry smiled and nodded. "Thanks anyway."

The Auror made as though he were truly going to leave this time, then stopped suddenly. "Oh! Nearly forgot. Oi, Attila!"

An enormous tortoiseshell cat leapt up onto the desk from underneath it.

"'E don't need much carin' for," explained the Auror. "If you're orderin' lunch in for yourself, just order a bit extra for 'im—'s long as it's not vegetarian."

Harry watched the cat groom its bottle brush tail. "Is he—some kind of— _official_ cat?"

The Auror gave a short bark of a laugh. "'E's more important around 'ere than _you_ are, make no mistake. If one of _'em_ "—he jerked his head back toward the large chamber beyond the vestibule—"gets loose, it's Attila what'll catch 'em, not you."

Harry raised his eyebrows. "Have you had a lot of break-outs?"

"None yet." The Auror gave Harry a curt nod and a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Cheers, then." He stepped past Harry and out through the front door, leaving Harry alone in the vestibule with the high desk and the preening cat.

Relieved to be alone at last, Harry walked past the desk and into the chamber that opened up behind the vestibule. He wasn't sure quite what he had expected, but it wasn't this. It looked like a crypt beneath a Medieval cathedral, with squat, pointed gothic arches receding in orderly arcades off into darkness. Despite its cavernous quality and damp chill, there was a kind of stuffy, sound-deadening stillness to the room, and the only thing that broke the oppressive silence was a noise just barely within the range of hearing that sounded like vermin scratching and scurrying behind walls.

There was only one thing there. Spreading across the entire floor and stopping within three feet of each wall was a knee-high maze, made of stone, its aisles just wide enough for a man to walk in. The spaces between the aisles were filled with isolated cubby-hole-like spaces, open at the top, which gave the whole structure the appearance of a honeycomb. There were easily ten thousand of these tiny spaces. Harry tried counting the number of rows in each direction by eye but gave up after losing track.

Behind him, the tortoiseshell cat yawned and clambered back down to its bed under the desk. Harry turned and sat down in the chair.

"Well, here I am," he said aloud.

The cat flicked his ears back and closed his eyes.

"What now?" Harry asked the room. When no helpful reply was forthcoming, he said, "Might as well get on with it, then," and took out his wand. " _Accio inmate log_ ," he intoned.

A thick scroll of parchment unearthed itself from beneath a disorderly stack of paperwork and flew into Harry's outstretched hand. He unrolled it and studied it for a moment, running his finger down the columns of neat script. After a short while, he found the entry he was looking for. Setting the scroll aside, he took a deep breath. This was what he had come here for, after all; why delay?

* * *

Luminous numbers and letters appeared in the air as Harry passed each cubby hole, winding his way through the twisting aisles. The stone walls were at just the right height so that if he lost his balance momentarily, he would bruise his shins. Several times, he nearly went sprawling. He felt like Godzilla stalking through the streets of Tokyo.

He turned a corner down a new aisle. "C-24…C-25…C-26…aha." He stopped. Cell C-27, inmate: Snape, Severus.

Harry knelt beside the roofless cubby hole, no more than a foot square in size, above which the glowing "C-27" hovered. Leaning over, he peered inside.

At the bottom was a fully furnished, miniature prison cell. A tiny, spartan cot, no larger than a blackboard eraser, was rammed up against one wall. A tiny sink and commode were built into the other. A table and chair, looking for all the world like dollhouse furniture, stood in a corner. Curled up on the cot's coarse woollen blanket, measuring no more than six inches from his head to his toes, was a tiny, black-clad man. He was asleep.

Harry looked, and looked. Prepared for it though he had been, the sight still shocked him—a living, breathing human being, shrunk to the size of a toy. Harry could see the tiny chest rising and falling with deep, slow breaths, could see the tiny fingers curling convulsively as the man dreamed, could see the strands of black hair—now almost microscopically fine—on the man's greasy head, count each dust-speck-sized button down his front.

Not since stepping into the Weasleys' old canvas camping tent and finding a palatial cottage inside had Harry felt so innocently dazzled by the wonder and power of magic. It was easy to forget that this was a man he'd hated for nearly half his life. He'd expected a greater feeling of conquest upon seeing him, a triumphant satisfaction at finding his old enemy brought so low, as it were. What he felt instead was pure fascination. As though he were a child again, peering at a brightly-coloured lizard in a terrarium, his urge to touch was overwhelming.

Reaching down into the small space, Harry closed his hand around the tiny man.

The reaction was instantaneous. As soon as Snape awoke, he began to wriggle and squirm in Harry's grasp, kicking with his tiny feet and pushing, as hard as he was able, against the unmovable force of Harry's fingers. It was exactly like holding the pet hamster Dudley had owned briefly, which of course Harry had not been permitted to touch but had done so anyway, secretly, when Dudley wasn't around. The hamster had also struggled violently, as though for its very life, and Harry had been sad that there was no way to tell it that it wasn't in any danger. This was different, in that Harry rather liked the warm feeling spreading through his gut at the thought that the little man might be afraid of him. What other things could he make Snape feel, now that their positions were reversed, in a way?

The thought of confronting Snape under these new circumstances had haunted him since he'd first heard how the Ministry was planning to handle the prison crisis following the end of the war. A Dementor-less Azkaban required more manpower to guard and maintain than the Ministry could afford, and with a record number of inmates flooding into it following the defeat of Voldemort, the problem had reached a critical point. The new prison—referred to in the press as "the Dollhouse"—could be guarded by a single Auror and, apparently, a single cat. The spells required to shrink the inmates were controversial and highly regulated, but virtually unbreakable by an inmate, since the shrunken person's magical abilities shrank with them. The inmates were helpless, certainly within the facility but even more so without, so that even if escape _were_ possible, survival in a world filled with cats, birds, human feet and fast-moving Muggle vehicles was not. It was the perfect solution.

When Harry had been told about the plans in detail, he'd thought immediately of Snape and his eyes had widened at the delicious irony. What punishment could be more appropriate for a man who had devoted his life to making everyone around him feel small?

He hadn't decided right in that very moment to find a way of confronting Snape in his newly humbled state, but the idea had been planted, and over the weeks it had quietly gathered strength until it became close to an obsession, and one day he found himself filling out the transfer papers and imagining what he would _do_ , what he would _say_ , once he had his dearly hated professor completely under his power. He'd daydreamed about it, the way he'd once daydreamed how his date with Cho might go back in fifth year. He'd even caught himself thinking about it during a wank, which had been a bit disturbing.

Always, he'd imagined saying all the things he'd never been quick or clever enough to say to Snape before, telling him—no, _showing_ him, in indisputable detail—what a pathetic bully he was. He imagined punishing him for specific crimes, one at a time—taunting Snape's uselessness just like Snape had goaded Sirius; humiliating him the way Snape had humiliated Harry in class so many times; finding a way to hurt him, _somehow_ , as revenge for all the deaths he'd caused…Harry's parents, Sirius, Dumbledore—even Ron and Hermione. Snape hadn't killed them, but in Harry's mind he was part of the thing that had, and that was enough.

The only thing Harry had never quite worked out was how exactly he would make Snape suffer—he didn't have a good imagination for torture and the whole idea made him queasy, even though it was _Snape_ , a man he'd once believed he could kill if given the chance. Despite Harry's repeated attempts, his fantasies of making Snape pay for all those deaths remained maddeningly vague. His desire to do so, however, only grew. As empty as his life had become, it was the only real desire he had anymore.

* * *

Harry sat in his chair back at his desk, the still-struggling Snape grasped tightly in both hands like a frog in the clutches of a small boy. "Potter," spat Snape, his voice tiny and faint as though he were calling to Harry from a hundred yards away. "I should have expected you'd come to gloat sooner or later." Snape's miniature sneer didn't have the same power to intimidate possessed by the original, and Harry felt a thrill at the spectacle of Snape placing tiny hands on top of Harry's fingers and trying futilely to push himself out the top of Harry's fist. As an experiment, Harry squeezed a bit harder, and Snape's sneer was replaced by a look of panic as he thrashed and gasped with new desperation. The thrill deepened and settled low in Harry's stomach.

Once Harry loosened his grip, Snape started in again. "You're merely confirming what I always thought," he called up. "You're nothing but a common bully, just like your father was, no matter how much Dumbledore and the others wanted you to be special—"

"Try to remember something, Snape," said Harry quietly, Dumbledore's name like ice water down his back. "In here, I have all the power, and you have none. So nothing you can possibly say will do you any good. In fact"—Harry gave Snape's neck a pinch as a taut coil of anger unwound in his chest—"we both know you can do nothing, so the more you yell and struggle like a worm on a hook, the more you convince me how truly helpless you are."

Snape stopped struggling, a change passing over his face as Harry's words sank in that was almost comical. Harry could see the battle playing out in Snape's mind as he realised what Harry meant—that futile physical resistance would only make his psychological surrender more complete. Those cold black eyes that had bored like maggots into Harry's confidence during school were now wide with the deep horror of his situation, devoid of their former power to terrify, now forced to be the very thing Snape had always contemptuously derided: transparent windows into the heart and mind behind them.

Harry let his eyes slip shut, savouring the purity of the feeling. Few thrills could ever equal this—seeing Snape completely defeated, a slimy mollusc torn from its shell, shivering in the air, revealed in all its pathetic spinelessness. It was too sweet for words.

"You might be right about that bully thing," he breathed, dizzy from the competing effects of anger and excitement. "I did learn from the best. From now on, I'm going to feed back to you every nasty thing you ever did to me, and you're going to see what it's like to choke on your own filth."

The wide eyes had gone glassy, the tiny face slowly losing its expression as Snape did the only thing he knew how to do, which was to retreat inside himself and collect himself behind a blank exterior. Harry clenched his teeth, a vicious laugh gathering in his throat. It was the obvious move since it was the last one on the board—checkmate was only a matter of time. It could be now, or later; it was up to Harry's whim.

Harry thought he might like to draw it out a bit. He suddenly had a marvellous, delicious, thrilling idea.

"I have someone to introduce you to," he told the now-still, stone-faced Snape. "I'm sure you've heard of him. Attila?"

Snape's blankness vanished and his eyes widened anew as the cat emerged from under the desk and sat down patiently at Harry's knee. Harry took Snape by the back of his robes and dangled him in the air above the now quite curious Attila, whose owl-like green eyes followed the tiny man hungrily as Harry swung him back and forth.

"How much do you think I hate you, Snape?" Harry asked with quiet venom, unable to keep a slight shake out of his voice. He felt giddy, as though the air in the room were too thin. "How far do you think I'd go to pay you back for everything you've done to me? Willing to bet your life on your answer?" He lowered Snape further toward Attila, who was now twitching his tail restlessly and shifting from paw to paw in anticipation.

Snape's composure broke and he shrieked as Attila took a first experimental swipe, missing his feet by inches. He thrashed once in Harry's grip, then went suddenly still as he realised that only the integrity of his robes was keeping him from death. Harry sucked in a deep, ecstatic breath.

"You do have a bad history with vicious beasts, don’t you, Snape?" Harry smiled at his own cleverness. He now understood Snape's secret in school—that creative mockery was easy when you were the one with all the power. "How's this—shall we consider this payment for the time you drove Remus out of Hogwarts, say?"

Snape didn't reply; he was too busy trying to climb up Harry's hand as Attila got onto his haunches and reached toward the dangling morsel with claws extended. Harry let his hand drop a bit, bringing Snape closer to the impatient cat, and flushed with equal parts pleasure and guilt at Snape's scream as Attila's jaws snapped shut just below him. Of course Harry wasn't going to let Snape die, and Snape no doubt realised this—which made his terror all the more satisfying somehow, since Harry knew it was humiliation rather than proper fear he was inspiring.

When Harry took Snape back to his cell, the tiny man's face was as grey as ash and his whole body was trembling in Harry's hand. He looked remarkably similar to the way Dudley's hamster had looked when Dudley had returned it to its cage.

"What do you think Dumbledore would think of you now?" Snape called bitterly as Harry set him down amid the doll furniture. "You think he'd be proud of his golden boy? Gone from breaking school rules and getting his friends killed to torturing defenceless prisoners?"

"Mention Dumbledore again," Harry said softly, a lump of ice materialising in his stomach, "and I'll squeeze too hard next time."

Snape's shouts quickly died away as Harry made his way back to his desk.

* * *

That afternoon, Kingsley Shacklebolt and two other Aurors stood in front of Harry's desk, along with a wild-eyed man with an unkempt beard. "Godfrey Nott," Kingsley told Harry. "Just convicted. Low level, but something of a holdout. He'll only get ten years, unfortunately." He Summoned the inmate log and with another wave of his wand, a new entry appeared.

The man, Nott, who had been staring at the floor muttering to himself, suddenly looked straight at Harry. "Why, it's 'Arry Potter!" he said with a ghastly smile that was short a few teeth, perhaps courtesy of his arrest. "I must _really_ be special if ' _e's_ 'ere!"

The other two Aurors took hold of his arms and stepped away so that he was stretched between them; as Kingsley raised his wand, Nott realised what was happening. "Oh no…" He tugged at his arms and began to twist. "No, you don't…" His mad eyes returned to Harry. "Potter! Potter, you stop them, do you 'ear? Tell 'em they can't 'ave ol' Goddy Nott—"

" _Diminutio decem annos_ ," said Kingsley, and Nott vanished.

Peering over the side of his desk, Harry saw the now-tiny Nott still ranting and shaking his fists, no bigger than a toy. One of the Aurors bent and picked him up, and the other Auror followed as Nott was carried back toward the maze.

"I almost didn't sign your transfer request," Kingsley said once they were out of earshot, leaning his hip against Harry's desk. "But you're an adult now, you've a right to make your own decisions—much as Molly Weasley would like to say otherwise."

Harry shrugged and took a bite of his sandwich. "I just needed a rest. I won't stay here long."

"Merlin knows you've earned a rest." Kingsley shifted to the other hip. "We were all surprised when you jumped into training so soon after—after the war ended."

"Needed to keep busy," Harry shrugged again.

"I thought you said you needed a rest."

"Haven't you ever heard of a restful kind of busy?" snapped Harry. He sighed. "I know that sounds like a load of bollocks. Look, Kingsley—I just needed to do _something_ , but I'm shy of anything with too much responsibility at the moment, you know?"

Kingsley nodded. "You've had enough responsibility for one lifetime." The worried look he was giving Harry suddenly turned urgent, as though he were determined to speak before he lost his nerve. "You know—there are people you could talk to," he said quickly, "people who could help—and don't forget that you still have friends—"

"Don't," Harry said, holding up his hands. "Molly gave me this speech last week and I don't need to hear it again."

Kingsley was silent.

Harry sighed again. "Look—I love Molly, and I know there are still people left who care about me. But right now, most of those people just remind me of the ones I've lost rather than making me feel better. It's not their fault, but—but I can't be around them for a while."

Kingsley gave him a sad smile. "We're here for you when you need us, Harry. Just don't forget that."

"Of course." Harry hoped his tight-lipped smile conveyed that the conversation was over. "Thank you."

Kingsley took his cue and left.

* * *

Harry waited out the rest of the afternoon and sat at his desk, staring into nothing and thinking about Snape back in his cell somewhere behind him. Snape seemed to be bound up in so many of his feelings these days, cropping up in his thoughts like a recurring theme, like he was the secret connecting principle of everything. All Harry seemed to do anymore was to think about things that had already happened. He couldn't remember what it felt like not to wake up angry every morning and go to bed angry every night—and not even a specific, directed, useful anger, just a burning ache, a sense of wrongness and off-kilteredness, an impotent desire to strike out. His friends were dead—the only people who had eased the pain of his missing family were gone and there were no replacements. The great purpose for which he had sacrificed his childhood was over and done with. Life stretched in front of him like a straight, featureless highway through the wastes—nothing either good or bad was ahead.

Somehow, in the churning, nauseous jumble of the angry thoughts he lived with from day to day, it made a soothing kind of sense to blame Snape for everything—even though he knew that the truth was nowhere so pleasingly simple. He needed _someone_ to be accountable for this, and Snape deserved it as much as anyone else. It had felt good to hurt him, to humiliate him, although there had been that bit of guilt as well. He had felt _alive_ as he'd done it, though, more so than he'd felt in months. His life these days was fumbling around in the dark, searching for something to lessen the pain—and if he found something that could do that, he followed it, and didn't ask questions.

* * *

The next morning, Snape was back in Harry's hand, sullen and silent.

"What to do with you next…" Harry chewed his thumbnail, his mind in an uproar. He had the same, incredible need to do _something_ to Snape as before, but—what, exactly? He couldn't bring himself to hurt the man in cold blood, to actually use his hands to cause pain, wantonly, when his victim had no means of defence. He stared at Snape and thought about squeezing, about watching the tiny face grow red and then purple, feeling the tiny body jerking and kicking, the fragile bones snapping—no. His stomach lurched. Why couldn't he have been born without a conscience, so he could just take his revenge and enjoy it with no interfering guilt? How could he be filled with the desire to inflict pain when the very thought of doing so made him sick?

He turned his thoughts to all the things Snape had done to him over the years. He thought about Snape bullying him in Potions. The time after the horrible incident with the Pensieve, when Harry had laboured during class to make a perfect Invigoration Draught and Snape had "accidentally" knocked the flask to the floor. It had always been that way with Snape—jumping through endless hoops, but never with any reward at the end, just slamming against the same wall of unfairness every time.

The thought of Dudley's hamster arose in his mind again. The poor thing had had a little wheel in its cage, for exercise presumably, but Harry had always thought it was more humiliating than health-promoting. Watching it running and running without ever getting anywhere had been amusing to Dudley but profoundly depressing to Harry. Years later, fighting against Snape's unwavering cruelty and unfairness had felt much the same.

A wicked little idea arose in Harry's mind. With a flick of his wand, he Transfigured his Chudley Cannons tearaway desk calendar into a hamster wheel like the one he remembered. He took Snape and carefully placed him inside. With another flick of his wand, the wheel began to turn.

At first, Snape wobbled and fell, then tumbled head over heels down the metal rungs once the wheel had carried him high enough. He struggled to stand and then attempted to run, but his little feet kept slipping between the rungs and he would be dragged halfway upside down again until he fell back. Eventually he was using both his hands and feet to scramble against the wheel's motion. Just like a real hamster, Harry thought with a giddy little bubble in his throat.

It was truly an absurd sight. Snape was breathing hard and sweating has he struggled to keep up with the wheel, bent double with his arse in the air. Every so often, a hand or foot would slip and he would be tossed and flung around until he managed to gain purchase again. It looked painful—like falling down a flight of stairs over and over again. Harry felt strange and breathless as he watched the hilarious and horrifying spectacle. He wanted to laugh but was afraid it might come out as a scream.

"Enjoying yourself?" he asked the frantically scrambling Snape. His voice sounded too high in his ears; he felt on the verge of hysteria. "This is what you used to put me through, you know. Just like this."

Snape now looked genuinely exhausted. Eventually, he collapsed and simply let the wheel fling him, tumbling down over and over like the balls in the lotto machine. Harry watched him tumble, sickened but mesmerised.

With a feeling like he'd suddenly woken from a trance, Harry stopped the wheel with a hasty flick of his wand. How long had he let Snape be flung about like a toy inside that thing, anyway? Snape lay in a heap at the bottom of the wheel, not moving.

Deep shame washed over him. What would Kingsley say if he came in at this moment and saw what Harry was doing? He had just tortured someone, deliberately subjected them to abuse. Only monsters did that kind of thing. His insides were churning. He'd been happy to do it, too—he'd even taken pleasure in it. The humiliation more than anything, but the physical pain, too—he'd seen Snape was in distress and yet he hadn't moved to stop it for several seconds at least. He'd _wanted_ that, _enjoyed_ it.

Carefully, he took Snape out of the wheel and laid him on the desk. Snape still didn't move; he was limp, and his eyes were closed. He seemed very delicate and breakable. Harry realised how very little it would take to injure or kill him. He might already have done it, in fact.

Harry tried to arrange Snape's tiny limbs gently so that Snape looked less like a broken, jumbled heap. Lowering his eye to the level of the desk, he peered at Snape's chest to see if it was still moving up and down. He was relieved to see that it was. For a moment, he gazed at the battered and exhausted little figure and tried to make sense of what he was feeling. Guilt, pleasure, and pity were all struggling with one another inside him as he realised how _satisfied_ the sight of the injured Snape made him feel, how warm and melty inside—the same feeling he used to get looking at a girl he fancied. There was a trickle of blood near Snape's hairline that Harry wanted desperately to wipe away. He reached for the trickle, his huge finger brushing the delicate skin, the impossibly fine hair, as soft as plant silk—

He couldn't be sure quite what happened next. All he saw was Snape sit up suddenly, and then there was something squirming up the inside of his sleeve. Harry stood up, knocking his chair over, patting his clothes frantically, but Snape stayed ahead of him. There was a tickle in his armpit, then by his ribs, then a tugging on his pant leg, and then he spotted Snape making a mad dash across the floor toward the front door of the vestibule.

Harry watched him run for a moment, unsure whether to be angered by Snape's defiance or impressed by his courage. Snape had no chance, and surely he knew that, but had made the attempt anyway. It made Harry furious, actually—and to think he'd just been feeling sorry for the little bastard, and feeling something else as well, something weirdly close to affection or admiration. Attila looked up at Harry as if to ask his permission to capture the fugitive, but Harry shook his head.

It must have been that spark of fury at Snape's refusal to accept his punishment that made Harry wait a few moments longer before making a move. Just as the tiny figure reached the front door, just as his foot touched the threshold of freedom, Harry pointed his wand and said, " _Accio Snape_."

The spell jerked Snape backward with an invisible hook and flung him through the air at what probably felt like an incredible speed until he was stopped by Harry's outstretched hand. Harry set him down on the desk and watched, darkly pleased, as Snape fell to his hands and knees and was violently sick. When he had stopped heaving and a Knut-sized puddle of vomit had appeared on the desk's shiny surface, Harry said softly through gritted teeth, "Now do you understand how well and truly fucked you are, Snape?"

Snape looked up at him, panting, and snarled.

* * *

That night, Harry stared at the ceiling and thought about seeing Snape's crumpled form motionless on the desk. He wished more than anything that he could control the spontaneous, animal empathy he felt upon seeing another living creature in pain, because he _wanted_ Snape to suffer—Merlin, how he wanted it. The two feelings—the desire to hurt, and the aversion to it—were like cords tied to both of his wrists that were tugging him in opposite directions. Then there'd also been that strange satisfaction; a tenderness toward Snape that wasn't just pity. A restless feeling in the pit of his stomach at the sight of the limp and helpless little man, which felt disturbingly close to arousal. He'd had the urge to touch Snape more, to pick him up and pet him like he might have done with the hamster. He didn't even want to think about what _that_ might mean.

Nothing made sense. He'd hoped that finally getting his hands on Snape would appease his anger, would make his grief easier to bear, but instead, everything inside him felt more confused and violent than ever. In a way, he felt worse, because he was losing that clear sense he'd had before that Snape was to blame for everything, that to punish Snape would be to strike at the source of all the evil in his life.

Going in to work the next day, he tried to puzzle it all out. What did he want from Snape? What did he really want to do to him? What would make all of these strange and conflicting feelings go away?

Harry took Snape back to his desk after collecting him from his cell. For a moment, he just sat silently, watching Snape watch him with growing apprehension.

"What's the matter, Potter?" Snape sneered, his formerly deep, rich voice now a thin shade of itself. "Are the torture ideas not flowing as freely anymore? Finally come to the end of your limited imagination?"

Harry stared. He ached with a curious hunger, looking at Snape—felt a yawning empty space in his chest that longed to be filled, with—what, exactly? He shut his eyes and tried to let his hands act automatically, to go where they wanted to go.

Hesitantly, his hands found their way to the tiny buttons on the front of Snape's robes and began to flick them off.

Snape began to fight as soon as he realised what was happening. He thrashed and struggled in Harry's grip, twisting his body unsuccessfully away from Harry's fingers as they tore off the buttons and then parted the tiny robes.

From somewhere inside of himself, Harry watched what he was doing in shocked disbelief. _This_ was what he wanted to do to Snape? To strip him? The thought would have appalled him not so long ago—a fate worse than death, Ron probably would have called it. But it felt—correct, in some strange way. That aching space inside him was yearning toward this, was wanting it, and Harry followed its need as though he were being drawn onward by an invisible thread. His hands worked slowly, steadily. He felt oddly at peace.

Once he'd peeled off Snape's outer cloak, Harry ran a fingernail up inside the tunic and split it down the middle, then carefully removed it as well. All that was left were trousers and pants; the flies gave with a flick of his thumb, and were remarkably easy to tug off Snape's legs after that. He had to let go of Snape's ankles for a moment to do so, giving Snape the freedom to kick out savagely—but his legs were trapped by the trousers, and as soon as they'd kicked themselves free, Harry had caught hold of them again, and Snape was once again pinned at both ends. Harry tugged him out straight to examine him.

It was like looking at the most exquisitely crafted, lifelike doll imaginable. Harry had undressed his second-hand dolls and plastic figures out of childish curiosity, but he'd always been disappointed at their incompleteness, at the limits of their resemblance to himself. Snape, however, was marvellously complete—down to the fine black curls that fanned across his belly and chest, as delicate as though they'd been painted on with the smallest, finest paintbrush. His skin was as pale and smooth as polished ivory, but unlike ivory, it was warm and velvety to the touch. Every detail was present in exquisite miniature: the tiny tufts of hair under his arms, the miniscule fingers and toes with their nearly invisible nails, the tiny divot of the navel. Harry stared for a long time in silent wonder at the tiny, perfectly formed genitals, their deep rosy colour shocking against the pale skin, framed in a halo of jet black hair.

Snape had turned to press his face into his arm, which was pinned and stretched above his head, and Harry watched in amazement as a delicate flush spread across the pale skin, like the tinge of pink edging a rose petal. It was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen; and to think he could ever have said such a thing about Severus _Snape_. There was something about casting a thing in miniature that made it so much more wonderful to behold; he couldn’t imagine being in such ecstasies if the full-sized Snape were nude in front of him. Shifting so that he could pin Snape's limbs one-handed, he ran a finger from the tiny hollow beneath the perfect little throat, down the cream-pale chest between nipples no larger than drops of blood from the prick of a pin, along the trail of hair as soft and fine as peach fuzz, until the blunt square of his finger tip rubbed against the tiny, rosy cock.

Snape trembled and writhed, still hiding his face as the enormous finger stroked him. When it touched his cock, he gasped and twisted away from the touch as best he could. Harry held him tighter and nudged the tiny appendage again, rubbing as gently as he could, fascinated. No doll had ever been this lifelike, this excitingly, magically real. He wasn't thinking of ways to hurt or humiliate Snape now. It was so difficult to think of this fully-functioning simulacrum of a living human being that fit in the palm of his hand as "Snape," anyway. He wanted to explore it further, learn all its secrets, pry into its depths and peel back its layers, make it _do_ something.

Judging from how the tiny, fleshy nub was coming to life under his touches, it seemed as though Harry's new toy might oblige him in this after all.

Snape made an incoherent sound of protest as Harry lifted him to his face and touched his tongue to Snape's tiny thigh. Snape tasted like…like Harry himself tasted, like skin. His body was warm and fragrant up close, vibrating with life. Harry stroked his tongue experimentally up Snape's inner thighs where they met, and gave a little nudge with his tongue to the tiny scrotum. The cock above it was hard now, and Snape's dark little head thrashed back and forth against Harry's knuckles as Harry worked his tongue as gently as could be around the rigid little thing, tasting the faintest ghost of pungent fluid.

The little body twisted and writhed in his hand, still pinned tightly by fragile wrists and ankles, but Harry got the feeling from the high, soft little noises Snape was making that his struggling was no longer an attempt to escape. A tingle of excitement warmed Harry's core as he realised how totally he controlled this little creature—he could terrify it out of its wits one moment, and send it to the heights of sexual ecstasy the next. It was like a toy car Dudley had gotten for his birthday one year, which Harry had desperately coveted—not because it was bigger or prettier or more expensive than other toy cars, but because its hood and doors opened _and_ you could turn the steering wheel _and_ it made a little car-like sound when you ran it on the floor. Toys that did more than one thing were always better—and Snape was way better than any toy car.

Harry tried more pressure with his tongue and was delighted when Snape arched his back and moaned a tiny, doll-sized moan. What else could he do that might produce interesting reactions? He shifted Snape to rest loosely in one hand and ran a finger tip all around the small body, though without ceasing to work the tiny cock with his tongue. Snape squirmed when the finger ran over his ribs, which felt as fragile as mouse bones, and he twitched away from the finger when it ventured up into his armpit. He stretched and sighed, though, whenever the finger brushed over his nipples—Harry thought that perhaps the ridges of his fingerprint had a nice corrugated feel to them. Eventually, he stopped petting Snape and concentrated on his cock, eager to see what Snape would be like when he came. Harry rubbed his tongue tip against the red little thing as hard and as fast as he was able—he didn't want to accidentally lick too hard, but human tongues were not designed for the kind of fine motor control he needed. Ultimately, it didn't matter much; Snape thrashed and thrust his cock into the spongy softness of Harry's tongue and eventually he seized up from head to toe and shuddered, a strong, sharp flavour bursting suddenly across Harry's tongue.

Only when he'd finished making Snape come did Harry realise that he himself was achingly hard. The strangeness and excitement of exploring the tiny body—why were bodies so much more interesting when they were miniature?—must have done it, because he certainly wasn't regularly aroused by men and even if he were, this was Snape, the man who was uglier than the gargoyle guarding Dumbledore's office, a man he'd hated since he was a child. It was ridiculous to think it was Snape and not simply the situation that was making him horny.

Gazing at the tiny, naked man lying limp and still in the palm of his hand, Harry felt a sweet thrill of arousal so keen he had to close his eyes.

"Did you enjoy that, Potter?" came a faint voice from his hand. Harry's eyes snapped open.

Snape was giving him a miniscule version of the mocking smile he'd always worn in Potions class right before he did something particularly unfair.

"Not as much as you did," Harry said with a sniff, gathering Snape's clothes and starting back toward the maze.

Snape acted like he hadn't heard him. "This is a new side of you, Potter," he went on, folding his arms behind his head and lounging in Harry's palm as though he were on a beach. "I knew you were an incompetent fool, but I didn't realise you were a pervert and a homosexual as well."

"I'm none of those things," Harry said shortly. He knew Snape was baiting him, but he had trouble simply letting an insult stand.

"No, no," Snape continued smugly, "I think technically, after what you just did, you are."

"Think whatever you want." Harry reached Snape's cell and placed him inside along with his clothes.

"Of course, I know how adept you are at denial." Snape seized his robe and wrapped it protectively around himself. "After all, you are the one who has critical evidence locked away and has never even bothered to look at it."

Harry started. "Who told you that?" he blurted out stupidly, before he could think.

"None of your business," was Snape's sour reply. He curled up on his bunk with his face to the wall and appeared to decide, for all intents and purposes, that Harry was no longer there.

That evening, Harry went home and took something out of a bottom drawer. He placed it on top of his bureau and sat back to stare at it.

When Snape had been arrested (at home, no resistance), Harry had been present. Finding himself alone in one of the rooms of Snape's cramped little house, Harry had spotted a small crystal flask, and recognised its contents as a memory. Without thinking, Harry slipped it in his pocket, knowing only that it was important he see what was in it first, without anyone else's interference. He didn't think about the serious trouble he'd be in if anyone discovered he'd palmed possible evidence. He didn't even think too deeply about what the memory might contain. It had been a split-second decision, and one he rather regretted.

At home, Harry had found himself unable to view the memory after all. Every time he poured it into his Pensieve, something—an external force, almost—stopped him as he was about to dive in. Eventually, he stopped trying, and the flask stood untouched on his bureau, a visual reminder every day of what a coward he was. Incomplete though it was, his picture of what had happened during the war was already horrible enough; the thought of completing it to reveal an even more grotesque image was too much to bear. He would rather live in ignorance. It was, however, an uneasy ignorance. After more time passed, the flask went into a drawer.

Now, Harry gazed at the flask and wondered what he should do with it now. "Critical evidence," Snape had called it. Whatever was in that flask would be helpful to Snape, not incriminating—otherwise, he'd never have mentioned it. Under no circumstances did Harry want to help Snape; but neither did he like the picture of himself as a suppressor of the truth. What was making it so hard for him to look at the memory now? Was he so petty that he'd rather keep Snape imprisoned even if there was a chance the man was—

No. Snape would never, _ever_ be innocent. It was some kind of trick, whatever was in that flask. Whatever the "facts" were, they lied if they described a man who was anything other than a malicious, execrable traitor.

For all he knew, the memory was just Snape's wanking fantasy that he'd hoped to take with him to prison. A shiver went down Harry's spine at the thought of "Snape" paired with "wanking," and he recalled the odd feeling of that tiny little cock against his tongue, the smell and texture of that smooth, warm skin. His hand wandered inside his shorts and he told himself, again for the hundredth time since that morning, that it was not Snape that was doing this to him but the novelty, the thrill of domination and power—anything but Snape himself.

He thought about taking his cock in his hand and sliding it alongside Snape's tiny body. He imagined his fingers closing around cock and Snape together, his shaft fitting against the smooth little belly and chest, the little arms and legs curling reflexively around him. He saw the head of his cock butting up under Snape's chin, the huge blunt thing pushing Snape's head back, tiny mouth open. Harry pictured the little face bewildered by humiliation and desire. "Take it, you bastard," Harry growled as he came hard into his fist, but the sounds he heard Snape making were of pleasure, not of pain, and he wondered where along the way that change had taken place. It was a long time before he slept.

* * *

All morning, Harry sat on his hands. Otherwise, they might have gotten up to mischief—mischief such as collecting Snape out of his cell and doing more things to him that would disturb Harry's sleep. He did his best not to think of anything. Sometimes, to keep from dwelling on the troubling memory of the day before, he would think about Ron and Hermione. That, however, was a cure that was worse than the disease; by lunchtime, he was a maudlin, nervous wreck. His sandwich stuck on the lump in his throat; his sandwich paper was dotted with wet blisters.

"Back so soon," Snape observed coldly as Harry knelt over his cell. "What's it to be this time? Have you all one hundred and twenty days of Sodom planned or are you playing this by ear?"

"Shut up," Harry said flatly. "Take off your clothes."

Snape blinked, folding tiny arms across his chest. "And what will you do if I don't?"

"Something bloody fucking worse!" Harry shouted. "Just do it!"

With a weary sigh, Snape stood slowly and took his time pulling first robe and then tunic (a new one since yesterday) over his head, then unhurriedly unbuttoning and lowering his trousers. He sat down and raised his eyes to Harry's.

"Now touch yourself," said Harry.

"Are you sure you'd not rather do it yourself?" Snape sneered. "Yesterday you seemed quite—"

"Today you're doing it yourself. Now get on with it."

With another sigh, Snape wrapped his hand around his cock and gave it a half-hearted tug. Harry leaned closer. Snape was so small that it was hard for Harry to tell if his little cock was hard or not.

"This isn't automatic, you know," Snape muttered. "I'm not exactly feeling—"

"I don't care how you feel," Harry said. "It's this or _Imperius_."

Snape's nervous glance up at Harry was followed by a slightly more enthusiastic stroke.

"Lie back," said Harry.

Snape complied. Leaning even closer, Harry could see that his lips were parted slightly and his eyes were closed. His hair looked like an inkblot from a broken quill on the colourless sheets of the dollhouse bed.

"Now spread your legs," Harry instructed, squinting to see better, "and cup your bollocks in your hand."

"Yes, master," Snape replied with a nasty curl of his lip. Harry ignored him, and simply watched the skinny thighs part and the tiny hand disappear into the V of his legs to gather his balls. They were barely visible, but Harry could see the movement of Snape's hand, could imagine him rolling the furry testicles around with a sure touch, knowing exactly how to do himself. Harry's own cock strained against the fabric of his trousers. Tears of frustration burned in the corners of his eyes. Why the hell was he doing this? What kind of sick freak did things like this?

Snape's strokes had sped up. His eyes were screwed shut now; he no longer seemed to care that Harry was watching him. His tiny body arched up, ribs and muscles tugging at the skin, throat arching and exposed. Harry felt a little faint; he pressed the heel of his hand to his groin and looked away for a moment, then with a lurch in his stomach looked back, not wanting to miss anything.

For a single surreal moment, Snape looked entirely fake, not a human being at all but a cleverly animated puppet, made all the more surreal by the beatific expression that would never appear on the real Snape's face. Then Snape came with a groan and splattered his belly with tiny droplets no larger than grains of sand.

Harry swayed on his knees, blood pounding in his temples. He was going insane; that was the only explanation for what he'd just done.

"Aren't you even curious?" the tiny voice said suddenly; Harry realised Snape was staring up at him.

"What?"

"About the damn memory," Snape snapped. "When you were a student, you couldn't keep your nose out of anything; where's all of that now?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Harry said lamely, trying to will away his erection and a sudden, choking feeling of guilt.

"It must really weight on your conscience if even you, The Boy Who Would Be Kept From Nothing Even When It Was For His Own Good, can't bring yourself to look at it. Do you keep it hidden away or out where you can look at it?"

Harry stood, feeling as though he might vomit. "Clean yourself up," he spat down at Snape. "You're disgusting." Then he made his way unsteadily back to his desk.

* * *

Despite all attempts at distraction, Harry had stayed half-hard under his desk all afternoon. By the time he made it home that evening, he was too aroused to think straight. He strode into his bedroom, cast off his robe, opened his trousers, and took his cock roughly in his hand.

"You like it," he said, imagining the tiny Snape wrapped around his cock. Snape's head wasn't even as large as the head of Harry's prick. Harry pictured his tiny face slack with arousal as it had been that morning. "You like to be controlled. Don't you?"

The Snape in his fantasy protested, but his cock was a tiny rigid point pressing into Harry's huge length like a dull tack. Harry's strokes sped up and he groaned.

"You always had to have a master, didn't you? Even if you killed him." He was crushing Snape's fragile body between his hand and prick, rubbing them together, cutting off Snape's breath. "He must have made you so angry. That why you used to take it out on us? Little kids who couldn't fight back?"

"No!" Snape gasped in Harry's mind as Harry thrust harder and faster through his hand. "I didn't do it!" Snape cried as Harry squeezed him tighter. "I didn't kill—I'm inno—"

"You killed him!" Harry saw himself coming. "You fucking killed him, you—" Come shot from his prick and drenched the tiny man, filling his eyes and ears and nose and mouth, soaking his hair, drowning him. Then the fantasy changed and Harry saw his cock, his huge cock, inside Snape's tiny arse, stretching him impossibly, filling his entire body. The tiny come-smeared face was twisted in ecstasy, yet the little mouth continued to say "No—no—I'm—"

Harry came hard. He curled forward, bent double by the force of his ejaculation, squeezing his prick so hard he was sure he'd break something. His mind was silent except for the thunderous roar of his ragged breath. He felt battered and blank.

Twenty minutes later, as he sat in the bath, he thought about Snape again, tiny body drowned in spunk, martyred in humiliation. The limp little figure in his fantasy watched him accusingly.

Harry felt filthy. He was becoming a monster, taking his own pain out on a helpless creature. He was getting off on it, even. Worst of all, he was wilfully ignoring the truth just to keep his little world safe.

After getting out of the bath, Harry went to his closet and lifted his neglected Pensieve out of the back. He placed it on top of the bureau and uncorked the memory flask. It sparkled invitingly as he poured it into the shallow basin. With a deep, shaky breath, he took his wand and touched its tip to the memory's shimmering surface.

* * *

It was ten minutes or ten hours later when he returned to his darkened bedroom. For a while, he sat on the floor without moving, staring sightlessly between his knees.

So Dumbledore had, indeed, been like all the rest. He'd abandoned Harry cheerfully—just like his parents, just like Sirius, even like Ron and Hermione had finally done, giving their lives for him—as though his own life would mean anything with all of them gone. How could they have done it so casually? How could Dumbledore have sat there, hateful in his bland benevolence, popping sweets and calmly instructing Snape to kill him when the time was right? What did he think would happen to Harry without him—did he even think of it at all? Did _any_ of them imagine what they were abandoning him to, or did they just not care? A quiet, deathlike stillness settled over his mind. He was nowhere, he was nothing; his head filled with a permanent kind of darkness like the end of the world when all the light had gone, and he was the only remaining living soul.

And then he thought about Snape. Snape, who had looked—human, in the memory. Horrified, saddened, angry, weak…everything Harry had felt afterwards himself. It made no sense; Snape was on the wrong side of the equation and everything was coming out wrong. To think—earlier that evening, he'd gotten himself off thinking about Snape, stroked his cock thinking about Snape, the man whose absolute, indisputable guilt was all that kept Harry's lost friends alive in some small way…what a betrayal it was to think anything remotely charitable about the man, let alone something sexual—that was an out and out abomination. Yet both things were true.

In the darkness of his bedroom, Harry cried as though he had just lost each and every one of them all over again.

* * *

In the morning, he sat at his desk and stared bleakly into nothing. He hadn't slept. The thought of Snape back in the maze was like a string tugging at the back of his mind, the dragging weight of conscience. Snape was innocent. Snape was innocent and Harry knew the truth and he was going to do nothing.

There was one thing he felt he might be able to do, something that might alleviate the pain, however briefly. Feeling like he was sleepwalking, Harry took Attila and put him out in the corridor, then locked and warded the door.

He had only seen the spell cast once and his Latin was a joke. He had no idea if this would work, and it might even result in disaster. Somehow, those possibilities seemed better than the alternative. He walked back to the maze, stopped next to Snape's cell, pointed his wand at himself, and said: " _Diminutio unam horam_."

The cells did not have doors, but they did have emergency rope ladders for use by shrunken medical personnel. Harry lowered the ladder outside Snape's cell and climbed in.

By the time he'd lowered himself to the floor of the cell, Snape was already staring at him with a look of intense displeasure.

Harry turned and faced him, squaring his shoulders with false confidence. It was strange to see Snape at what was effectively full size for the first time in months. This was no fantasy object; he was back to being menacing, and ugly, and real. Harry had seen him this way in the memory, of course, but that was the last thing he wanted to think about. Right now, it was Snape the cruel and vindictive taskmaster he wanted, not Snape the grieving and loyal friend of Dumbledore. "I left my wand outside," he announced awkwardly.

"How fascinating," Snape said, raising his eyebrows. "And why do you expect me to be interested in this fact?"

Harry took a steadying breath. His heart was pounding. "You can do whatever you want. I won't resist."

Snape's eyebrows climbed higher. "Again, I ask: why do you expect me to—"

"Because I tortured you!" Harry spat. Why did the bastard have to make this so difficult? "I molested you. I hurt and humili—Jesus, why on earth do I have to tell you this? You should want to murder me by now—or at least hurt me—"

"Ah," Snape interrupted, his look of irritated confusion melting into understanding. "You wish to be hurt, do you?"

"I want—I want you to—" Harry's throat suddenly closed up. He felt ridiculous, just dropping in here and presenting himself like this. It was humiliating—but that was part of the point. He simply had to grit his teeth and bear it.

The wheels were still turning in Snape's head as he peered at Harry. "You want me to…take my revenge on you now, isn't that right?"

"Why can't you just do it?" Harry yelled, surprising even himself. "I'm offering it to you on a silver platter here!"

Snape looked offended. "Well, I'm not interested!"

"Why the hell _not?_ "

"Because I know what you're about, Potter," Snape hissed, getting to his feet and approaching Harry with an air of menace. "You're attracted to me but you don't want to admit it. You know you've kept me here unjustly but you don't want to admit that either. So you think if you hand yourself over to the nasty murdering Death Eater and let him use you roughly, you can get what you want without ever having to admit you want it. You were forced, you had no choice, you weren't responsible." He halted and loomed over Harry. "Well, guess what, Potter—I'm not going to play along," he spat, bringing his face very close. "I'm not going to be part of your pathetic little exercise in self-delusion anymore, so you can take your 'revenge' and stuff it in your arse for all I care."

Harry had once faced down Voldemort; and yet, standing before Snape, he thought he had never before felt so much hatred for someone in his life. How dare he? How fucking _dare_ he? But all he could think to say, as his face flushed with deep, futile anger, was, "I am _not_ attracted to you." He cringed at his petulant whine.

Snape laughed—not his usual thin, mocking snigger but a deep and sustained sound of mirth. For a moment, Harry thought he looked almost like a normal person. "That's right," he said in between chuckles, "you merely stripped me, stimulated me to orgasm and then forced me to pleasure myself in front of you—but that doesn't mean you're _attracted_ to me." He continued to laugh.

Harry wanted to hit him—wanted it like nothing he'd ever wanted before. And yet somehow he didn't. He drew himself up. "What gives you the right to think you know what I want, Snape?"

"Right?" Snape's expression went from amusement to fury in a moment. "What gives _you_ the right," he shouted, spraying Harry with flecks of spittle at close range, "to allow me to stay here when you know I'm innocent?"

"Oh, no. You are not _innocent_ ," Harry shot back. "Maybe you had a good reason to kill Dumbledore, but that's not all you've done, you—"

"So you're a one-man Wizengamot now, are you?" Snape's voice dropped to deadly softness again. "Yes, I killed people. So did you! So did Kingsley sodding Shacklebolt! And hard as it may be for you to believe, not all of those people you killed deserved it. Some of them had friends and families, just the same as you—"

"But I—"

"But you had to! Of course!" Now Snape was back to shouting. "It was a war, Potter! People die in wars. So what, I ask, gives _you_ the right to decide that you're innocent and I am not?" The cell rang with sudden silence. "Well?"

"My parents—Sirius—"

"Were killed by Voldemort and Bellatrix, you imbecile, not by me! Has your mind gone so soft that you now think I'm responsible for every tragedy in your pathetic waste of a life? Or is it simply easier to blame someone else than to accept that someone might have died to save _your_ worthless life?"

Whatever Harry had been about to say evaporated, lost behind a fog of tears. Snape's words reverberated in his skull like an echo. There were so many. _God_ , there were so many, all of them gone—and here he still was. Living his worthless life. And it _was_ worthless, wasn't it? He was a miserable shell. He'd tortured a man who was, at least according to the law, innocent. Everyone he loved had given themselves to save a little wisp of smoke. They had all loved him that much, loved him in all his worthlessness. It was too much for one person to bear.

"For heaven's sake, pull yourself together, Potter," he heard Snape mutter contemptuously. He realised his face was wet.

For a moment, it was as though he and Snape were the last two people on earth. Perhaps that was why it made sense, since there was no one else, to turn pleading eyes on Snape and whisper miserably, "What do I do?"

"Do?" Snape sniffed. "I'd start by facing reality. Give the memory to the Ministry. If you need penance so badly, let that be it."

Harry found himself nodding shakily. "Okay."

"After that, I'd consider accepting the gift your dead friends have given you, instead of treating it like a shoddy hand-me-down. Live your life, Potter—useless though it is. Somebody obviously cared enough to want you to have it, so for Merlin's sake, try using it for something more dignified than sexually exploiting prison inmates all day long."

As usual, it was as though Snape had read his mind. Harry nodded again. His head felt strangely clear. It was the same feeling as when he went for days without wearing his glasses and suddenly put them back on—vague, menacing shapes regained their reassuring details, shadowy monsters became armchairs and coat racks. In a similar way, Snape suddenly appeared less sinister, less remarkable. After all, he was just one man; but Harry had filled him with the spirits of thousands.

"You were right before, by the way," he said, an odd calm settling over him. "I _am_ attracted to you, I guess." He laughed sadly. "Ridiculous as it is."

As slowly as could be, like the moon emerging sliver by sliver from below the horizon, a smile spread across Snape's face.

"Well?" Snape said impatiently, his smile turning wry. "Where're your bollocks, Potter?"

Harry froze. "But I—you—" he stammered.

Snape rolled his eyes. "Merlin, you're hopeless. If you think I'm going to help you, think again. I've done enough pandering to your neuroses already."

"Fine." Harry took a breath. "Sit down." He swallowed. "Er—please."

Snape gave him another faint, haughty smile, and sank slowly down onto the bed.

Harry took a step forward, then stopped again. "But it _is_ okay that—"

"You have my complete and utter consent, yes. As if you'd have a chance otherwise." Snape chuckled darkly. "Believe me, I'm going to enjoy having you on your knees for a change."

Once upon a time, that remark would have given Harry pause. Was Snape right, was it just penance he wanted? He found he didn't much care. This time, when Harry moved forward, as easily as if he were dreaming it all, he knew it was under his own power; nothing but his own desires guided his hands to Snape's buttons, opened the black robes to expose pale skin and draw out the rosy, eager cock. Its solid, salty heat on his tongue was satisfying like the sudden cessation of a pain one has become used to; its length filling his mouth closed an empty space somewhere in him that had been draining him like a sucking wound. Snape gave a soft, contented sigh and sagged back against the wall, his hands drifting to Harry's hair where they lay without pressing, just stating their presence. Their gentle touch made something twist in Harry's gut.

 _I want this._

He sucked, swirling his tongue around the petal-smooth head.

 _Snape. I want Snape and the world is not coming to an end_.

His hand burrowed under more skin-warmed cloth and closed around coarsely furred balls, lifting them, fitting them to the shape of his palm. He sucked in a deep breath through his nose, drinking in the rich animal scent, letting it rush in to the space that had held only sadness before.

He was certain he was doing a thoroughly clumsy job. For a little while, as he worked his hand awkwardly up and down the veined shaft and tried unsuccessfully to relax his throat, he was afraid that Snape would make him stop due to incompetence. When Snape's breathing began to lengthen and catch in spite of all this, and his hips began to rock ever so slightly, it suddenly seemed like a great gift to Harry that Snape had allowed him to go on, had accepted this from a man who had abused him not a day earlier. It wasn't fair, not really—by all rights, Harry should be suffering now for what he'd done, not getting exactly what he wanted. He sucked harder out of sheer gratitude, noticing for the first time that his own cock was iron-hard against his thigh.

His only warning was a stiffening of Snape's thighs and a squeezing of fingers in his hair. He coughed a little as come flooded his mouth, surprised by the volume and force, but so overwhelmed by the beauty of the rough, ardent sounds Snape was making that he barely noticed the embarrassing mess he was making down his front.

"The memory," Snape said, still draped across his bed as Harry rose and wiped ineffectually at his chin. "If you suddenly change your mind, you _will_ suffer, I promise you."

"I won't change my mind," Harry said. He smiled. The spell was probably nearly over—he'd only given himself an hour, assuming he'd even pronounced the words correctly. He turned to hoist himself out of the cell, feeling very much like Cinderella racing the clock in her pumpkin carriage, and didn't look behind to see if Snape was watching him leave. He wasn't sure what he wanted to see.

* * *

A day after Harry turned the flask containing the memory in to the Evidence Bureau, a date was set for a retrial of the case of the Ministry of Magic v. S. Snape. A day after that, Harry handed his resignation to Kingsley Shacklebolt. Kingsley accepted it without question.

Two days after that, Harry knocked on the door of the Burrow.

"Harry," gasped Molly Weasley. Her mouth hung open and her eyes swam with tears for a moment before she pulled him to her bosom.

After dinner, Harry sat with Molly and Arthur Weasley and listened to the aching silence of the house.

"We miss them," said Arthur. "We miss them every day. But we missed you, too."

"I know," said Harry.

A month and a day after that, Snape was released from the Amelia Bones Memorial Maximum Security Detention Facility for Dangerous Magical Persons. Harry met him outside the call booth that served as the Ministry's only entrance and exit. He was pleased to see that Snape was every bit his former six feet and change.

"You'll need a place to stay," Harry explained, then added sheepishly, "The Ministry sold your house."

Snape scowled. "Forget it, Potter. This is getting altogether tiresome. If you need to do further penance, perhaps you might consider—"

"No penance this time," Harry smiled. "I'm following your advice, actually."

"Oh? And how is that?"

"I'm living my life."

Snape rolled his eyes and gave an irritated sigh. But when Harry turned to go, he followed.


End file.
